Tonto's Expanding Head Band - Zero Time

Baptised as 'The Original New Timbral Orchestra' (T.O.N.T.O.) for being considered the first and biggest multitimbral polyphonic and analog synthesizer, the revolutionnary equipment was originally designed and constructed by the talented Malcolm Cecil, founder of TONTO's Expanding Head Band with Robert Margouleff.
The plethora of timbres it could create (remember, we are talking about more than three and a half decades ago), from warm sound to the most unexpected, did not have any parallels on the other equipments and it is said that some of the timbres cannot be copied by any other kind of synthesizer until today.

With Robert Margouleff, Malcolm Cecil produced TONTO's Expanding Head Band first album back in 1971 - 'Zero Time', bringing together atmospheric experimentalism, new timbres and huge creativity. Because of the very huge acclaim of it, the duo was invited to work as synthesizer programers, engineers on very well-known projects such as Stevie Wonder's electronic-Soul albums "Music of My Mind", "Talking Book", "Innervisions", "Fulfillingness' First Finale" and "Jungle Fever". The list of invitations also included albums for the major producer Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers band, revolutionnary Gil Scott-Heron and future Jazz band Weather Report, as well as releases from Steve Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat and Joan Baez, just to mention some.

All the compositions of Tonto's Expanding Head Band - 'Zero Time' long play (1971) are rather experimental and ahed-of-their-time. The story behind Malcolm Cecil's synthesizer, 'The Original And New Timbral Orchestra' (also known as T.O.N.T.O.) is just as amazing as the compositions on this album. The impact was so strong that, writing for a Keyboard Magazine in 1984, John Dilberto asserted that "... this collaboration changed the perspectives of black pop music as much as The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper altered the concept of white rock".

Tonto's Expanding Head Band's initial album 'Zero Time' was released with different sleeve artworks, even though the listener must not think the album or any of its tunes in particular were well-known - 'Zero Time' was vanguardist and its knowledge on the big audiences was restricted, far away from the mainstream. Through 'The Original New Timbral Orchestra' synthesizer collaboration on the compositions of other pop artists, its sounds would finally reach the masses.